Showing posts with label Viking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Viking. Show all posts

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Viking raids in the east: The fight for the riches of Constantinople

No place on Earth was as coveted by the Vikings as Constantinople, but the Scandinavian warriors could never breach the formidable defenses of the world’s richest city in spite of repeated attacks. It was only after the Vikings became the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine emperor that they grabbed a piece of Constantinople’s wealth.

The epic voyages of the Vikings to the British Isles, Iceland, North America and points west tend to obscure the fact that the Scandinavian warriors also ventured far to the east across Europe and parts of Asia. While the Danes and Norwegians sailed west, Swedish fighters and traders traveled in the opposite direction, enticed initially by the high-quality silver coins minted by the Abbasid Caliphate that sprawled across the Middle East.


Painting of The Invitation of the Varangians: Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga.
These Vikings who crossed the Baltic Sea and descended across Eastern Europe were branded “Rus”—possibly derived from “ruotsi,” a Finnish word for the Swedes meaning “a crew of oarsmen” and the term from which Russia receives its name. As the Rus migrated down the Dnieper and Volga Rivers, they established settlements along trade routes to the Black and Caspian Seas and conquered the native Slavic populations in present-day Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

By the middle of the ninth century, Rus merchants turned up in Baghdad. The capital of the Abbasid Caliphate may have been the world’s largest city with a population of more than one million people, but it failed to capture the Viking imagination like Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire that was said to harbor even greater riches.


“Silk and gold are the big lures,” says John Haywood, who chronicles the exploits of the Scandinavian raiders on four continents in his new book, “Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241.” “The Rus would have heard stories about the riches of Constantinople. The big attraction in trade was silk, which was a massively prestigious product for which they traded slaves, furs, beeswax and honey with the Byzantines. Constantinople was also one of the few places that still had gold coins, which were in short supply compared to the Roman period.”


Credit: xavierarnau/Getty Images)
Constantinople’s location on the shores of the Bosporus strait, which divided Europe from Asia, allowed it to become a prosperous crossroads of trade, the largest city in Europe and the richest city in the world. Great treasures necessitated stout defenses. The most-heavily fortified city in the world, Constantinople was encircled by a moat and three parallel walls. In addition, an iron chain that could be stretched across the mouth of the city’s harbor protected it from a naval assault.


It is not known when the Rus first reached Constantinople, but it was before 839 when Rus representatives arrived at the Frankish court as part of a Byzantine diplomatic mission. In June 860, the Rus launched a surprise attack on Constantinople at a time when the city was left largely undefended as Byzantine Emperor Michael III was off with his army fighting the Abbasid Caliphate in Asia Minor while the Byzantine navy was engaged with Arab pirates on the Mediterranean Sea.


Viking graffiti scars a balustrade in Hagia Sophia. (Credit: Jim Brandenburg/ Minden Pictures/Getty Images)
In what the Greek patriarch Photius called “a thunderbolt from heaven,” the Rus plundered the suburbs of Constantinople and launched coastal raids around the Sea of Marmara in which they burned houses, churches and monasteries and slaughtered the patriarch’s servants. However, they never attempted to breach the city walls before suddenly departing in August. The Byzantines credited divine intervention, but the Rus likely departed to ensure they could arrive back home before winter set in.


A medieval Russian source details a second attack on Constantinople in 907 when a fleet of 2,000 ships encountered the iron chain blockading the harbor entrance. The resourceful Vikings responded by going amphibious, hauling their ships ashore, affixing wheels and dragging them overland before placing them back in the water on the other side of the chain before being repelled by the Byzantines. No Byzantine accounts of a Viking attack in 907 exist, however, and Haywood notes that the story could have been concocted as a way to explain a subsequent trade agreement between the Rus and the Byzantines.


A Viking ship is approached by Byzantines at Constantinople. (Credit: Michael Hampshire/National Geographic/Getty Images)
In 941 the Rus launched a disastrous attack on Constantinople. With the Byzantine army and navy once again gone from the city, a fleet of 1,000 ships descended upon Constantinople only to be done in by 15 old dromons fitted with Greek Fire projectors that set the Viking ships ablaze. Weighed down by their armor, the Rus who avoided the flames by jumping into the sea sank to a watery demise. Others caught fire as they swam. When Byzantine reinforcements finally arrived, the Rus sailed for home.


A half-century later, the Vikings would be recruited to defend Constantinople instead of attacking it. When Byzantine Emperor Basil II faced an internal uprising in 987, Vladimir the Great gave him 6,000 Viking mercenaries known as Varangians to differentiate the native Scandinavians from the Rus who by the middle of the 10th century had assimilated with the native Slavs and lost their distinct identity. Impressed by the ferocity with which the Vikings battled the rebels, the emperor established the elite Varangian Guard to protect Constantinople and serve as his personal bodyguards.

 With no local ties or family connections that could divide their loyalties and an inability to speak the local language, the Varangians proved far less corruptible than Basil’s Greek guards.


The Varangian Guard. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
“They were immensely well rewarded,” Haywood says of the Varangians. “They were given silk for everyday wear. If you are Scandinavian at that time, you are doing well if you have silk trim on your clothes. They get an enhanced share of the booty. It’s this trickle of well-to-do homecoming mercenaries that spreads this image of Constantinople as the promised land of fabulous wealth.”


The Varangian Guard fought in every major Byzantine campaign—from Sicily to the Holy Land—until Constantinople was captured by Crusaders in 1204. Visitors to one of the most famous sites in the city now known as Istanbul can see that the Vikings left their mark on Constantinople—literally. At least two runic inscriptions carved into the marble walls of the Hagia Sophia may have been engraved by members of the Varangian Guard.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by History . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Friday, January 13, 2017

The death of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons' vengeance in the last episodes from season 4

When king Ælla of Northumbria learns of the pillaging army, he musters an overwhelming force and defeats Ragnar's army. Ragnar is dressed in a silken jacket which Aslaug had made and nothing can pierce it. Finally, he is taken prisoner and thrown into a snake pit. However, as the snakes do not bite him, the Englishmen take off his clothes and then the snakes kill him for good.

Ragnar's sons attack England but Ivar does not want to fight as the English army is too large; he fears they will lose and will have to go home again. Ivar, however, stays in England and asks Ælla for wergild, claiming that he can not go home without some compensation to show his brothers.


King Ælla of Northumbria (Ivan Kaye) photo: wikia
Ivar only asks for as much land as he can cover with an ox's hide. He cuts it into such a fine long string of hide that he can encircle an area large enough for a city. When this is done, he lays the foundations for a city which becomes York. He allies himself with all of England and finally all the chieftains in the region become loyal to Ivar and his brothers.

Then, Ivar tells his brothers to attack England. During the battle Ivar sides with his brothers and so do many of the English chieftains with their people, out of loyalty to Ivar. Ælla is taken captive and in revenge Ragnar's sons carve the blood eagle from him.

Ivar becomes king over north-eastern England which his forefathers owned (i.e. Ivar Vidfamne and Sigurd Ring), and he has two sons, Yngvar and Husto. They obey their father Ivar and torture king Edmund the Martyr and take his realm.


An 1857 painting by August Malmström depicting King Aella's messenger before Ragnar Lodbrok's sons. photo: wikipedia

Ragnar's sons pillage in England, Wales, France and Italy, until they come to the town of Luna in Italy. When they come back to Scandinavia, they divide the kingdom so that Björn Ironside has Uppsala and Sweden, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye has Zealand, Scania, Halland, Viken, Agder, all the way to Lindesnes and most of Oppland, and Hvitserk receives Reidgotaland (Jutland) and Wendland.

Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye marries king Ælla's daughter Blaeja and they have a son named Harthacnut, who succeeds his father as the king of Zealand, Scania and Halland, but Viken rebels and breaks loose. Harthacanute has a son named Gorm, who is big and strong but not as wise as his ancestors.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Wikipedia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

About Berserkers and Wolfskins: The elite troops of Viking warriors and other Scandinavian myths




















Updated today: 03/06/2021

Berserkers were a special group of elite Viking warriors who went into combat without traditional armor. Instead, they wore animal pelts, typically from bears or wolves. The word "berserker" derives from the Old Norse "serkr," meaning "coat" or "shirt," and "ber," the Norse word for "bear." ranker


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There were few established military institutions in Scandinavia at the start of the viking Ageabout 800, but a number of such organisations gradually developed as society came increasingly under the rule of a single king. The foremost institution was the retinue, a brotherhood of warriors serving a common master. It developed to become the main source of power for the medieval kings and evolved into a noble elite in the Middle Ages.


Wallpaper Viking, armor, Berserker  GoodFon


But there was a more sinister brotherhood of warriors in Scandinavia that could not find any place in the post-heathen world of Christianity. Instead it only survived in the realm of the sagas, the art and the folklore, often becoming shield-biting demons of war and symbols of evildoing


Wallpaper Viking, armor, Berserker  GoodFon

But behind the myth and the shroud of history, the sources reveal the existence of men thriving on the border between life and death, fuelled by war and distinguished by their ecstatic battle fury.

Updated 09/05/2020 

The description of Berserkers and ‘wolfskins’ in the sources is on the boundary between fantasy and reality, and it is difficult for us today to imagine that such people can have ever existed, possessed of incontrollable destructive power. 

Úlfhéðnar NORSKK



But they did. The berserkers and the wolfskins (also known as ‘heathen wolves’) were a special group of very skilled and dangerous warriors associated with the God Odin.


A 16th-century depiction of Norse gods by Olaus Magnus: from left to right, Frigg, Thor, and Odin photo: wikipedia



Coveted warriors

If there were elite troops such as berserkers and wolfskins available on the battlefield, they were put in the front of the phalanx a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry to resist the main weight of an attack, or at the front when launching an attack. But berserker troops could be a double-edged sword, as they were difficult to control in a battle and were often ill-suited to formation warfare. 

Instead, they seem to prefer to operate in smaller groups, attacking independently

Olav Haraldsson  (St Olav) put the berserkers in front of his own phalanx at the battle of Stiklestad in the year 1030, but instead of holding the line they attacked and thereby contributed to the king’s downfall.


This marginal illumination from the Saga of Saint Olaf shows his death at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Viking warriors looked to the God Odin to give them aggression and courage in battle, but the berserkers took this a step further. According to the sources they could rout an outnumbering force, and when they attacked they howled like mad dogs or wolves. It was said that neither iron nor fire could injure them, and they didn’t know pain. After a battle they were as weak as infants, totally spent both physically and psychologically.


Norse God, Odin Viking art Norse mythology Vikings Pinterest

It is difficult to find any clear difference between a berserker and a wolfskin. Sometimes they appear to be the same, under the general description of berserker, and at other times they are portrayed as two different types of warrior. In some contexts, the wolfskins are even more closely connected with the Odin cult than the berserkers seem to be.


Brotherhood of war

Originally berserkers developed their own brotherhood of professional warriors who travelled round and took service with different chiefs. What distinguished them was that they had bears and wolves as totem animals, and clad themselves in their skins. Irrespective of whether it was a bear or a wolf, the warriors believed they were endowed with the spirit of the animal. Designs showing warriors clad in what could be bearskins occur, among other places, on the Torslund plates from Öland, thought to date from the seventh century.


photo: Ubisoft

In the Fornalder sagas (‘Sagas of Earlier Times’) and in several other sagas, the king’s or the chieftain’s guard is described as made up of berserkers, usually 12 in number. The berserkers often comprised an elite troop in addition to the guard or the army in general. In sea battles they were usually stationed at the prow, to take the leading point of an attack. In the battle of Hafrsfjord, c872, they appear as shock troops for Harald Hårfagre (Finehair), in groups of 12.





The berserkers are spoken of as fearsome enemies to meet. They were often said to be so intoxicated by battle-lust that they bit their shields, attacked boulders and trees and even killed each other while they were waiting for battles to begin. A set of chessmen from the 12th century found on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides includes a chess piece of a warrior biting his shield.


Rampaging Vikings were fuelled by herbal tea The Times


The title of berserker is thought sometimes to have been inherited from father to son, and there are known examples of entire families of berserkers. One such family known from the sagas is Egil Skallagrimson. Egil’s father, Skallagrim (‘ugly skull’), and his grandfather Kveldulv  (‘nightwolf’) were also berserkers.


The concept of ‘berserk’ also turns up independently of ‘berserker’. The idea of ‘going berserk’ could apply to more than just the members of a warrior brotherhood. Harald Hardråde (Hardruler) “ex berserk” at the 1066 battle of Stamford Bridge, for example. 


Harald Hardrada - The Free Social Encyclopedia Alchetron

The expression is also used in relation to warriors who are not thought to have been wearing any distinctive uniform of animal skins. Olav Haraldsson’s berserkers, who wrecked the battle of Stiklestad for him, are an example of this.



Olav Haraldsson Pinterest
King Harold II, the Saxon king of Britain, beholds the body of his rebellious brother Tostig, whom he has just defeated at the battle of Stamford Bridge, 1066. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)




The earliest sources

The earliest written sources of what might be berserkers are found in Roman writings from the first century AD. In his book Germania, the historian Tacitus describes correspondingly fantastic elite warriors among the German tribes in northern Europe. In the sixth century, the East Roman historian Prokopios wrote of “the wild and lawless heruli” from the north, describing how they went almost naked into battle, clad only in loincloths – this was to show disdain for their wounds. They wore neither helmet nor coat of mail, and used only a light shield to protect themselves. The people who were described as ‘heruli’ probably had their origin on Sjæland or Fyn in today’s Denmark, but they can also be traced to other parts of Scandinavia, including Norway.


Hymn for St Olav My Albion

The heruli are said to have had a kingdom on Fyn. This may have survived until into the sixth century, but more of them had previously been driven out of Scandinavia by the Danes. The heruli often took service as warrior bands in the Roman army. They appeared in the same way as the berserkers, in small groups in the service of chieftains or kings, and there is a possibility that the origins of the berserkers may be found among the mysterious heruli.

The berserkers are often mentioned in sagas, skaldic poems [composed at the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking and Middle Ages] and other literature from the Middle Ages. In the sagas, which were written in a Christian context, the memory of these warriors has been extended to become a label for those who stand out from the norms of society: thugs and freebooters, pirates and so on. In the earliest Icelandic compendium of law, Grågås, it is said that a raging berserker can either be bound or condemned to exile.


“Wolf-heathens”


The oldest known written source about berserkers is Haraldskvadet, a 9th-century skaldic poem honouring King Harald, attributed to the skaldic poet Torbjørn Hornklove. Writing about the battle of Hafrsfjord [date unknown], he writes: “Berserkers roared where the battle raged, wolf-heathens howled and iron weapons trembled”.


Battle of Hafrsfjord. (World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)
In Grette’s Saga it is said of the warriors in that same battle: “… such berserkers as were called wolf-heathens; they had wolf-coverings as mail… and iron didn’t bite them; one of them… started roaring and bit the edge of his shield… and growled viciously”.

In the Volsung Saga, describing events in the sixth century, it is said that the berserkers were in Odin’s lifeguard and that they “went without armour, were as mad as dogs and wolves, they bit their shields, were as strong as bears or oxen, they killed everybody, and neither fire nor iron bit them; this is called going berserk”.

The descriptions in the sagas of violent men and killers cannot all be linked to the berserkers, however. Distinctions are made, for example, between ‘berserkers’ and ‘warriors,’ and between ‘normal’ killers and men who fought duels. And the Old Norse saga texts never call the berserkers mad or insane. They regard the berserkers as something more than just socially problematic and unusually aggressive. The sagas distinguish them from other men by ascribing to them a particular ‘nature’ that made one both scornful and fearful of them at the same time.


The mushroom theory

In 1784 a priest named Ödmann started a theory that ‘going berserk’ was the result of eating fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria). 

Amanita muscaria - Wikipedia


That explanation gradually became more popular, and remains so today. Ödmann based his hypothesis on reports about Siberian shamans, but it is important to note that he had no personal observations of the effects of eating this type of mushroom.

White agaric has also been suggested as a cause of the berserk fury, but considering how poisonous this is, it is quite unthinkable that it would be eaten. Eating agaric mushrooms can lead to depression and can make the user apathetic, in addition to its hallucinogenic effects. Berserkers are certainly never described as apathetic!



Poisoning with the fungus Claviceps purpurea has also been suggested – it contains a compound used to synthesise the hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). However, if mushrooms had been so important for the berserkers, they would surely have been mentioned in the sagas, which they are not.


The most probable explanation for ‘going berserk’ comes from psychiatry. The theory is that the groups of warriors, through ritual processes carried out before a battle (such as biting the edges of their shields), went into a self-induced hypnotic trance. In this dissociative state they lost conscious control of their actions, which are then directed subconsciously. People in this state seem remote, have little awareness of their surroundings and have reduced awareness of pain and increased muscle strength. Critical thinking and normal social inhibitions weaken, but the people affected are not unconscious.


Diminished responsibility

This condition of psychomotor automatism possibly resembles what in forensic psychiatry is described as ‘diminished responsibility’. The condition is followed by a major emotional catharsis in the form of tiredness and exhaustion, sometimes followed by sleep. Researchers think that the short-term aim of the trance may have been to achieve an abreaction of strong aggressive, destructive and sadistic impulses in a socially defined role.


The Old Norse social order and religion were able to accommodate this type of behaviour, and it is understandable that the phenomenon disappeared after the introduction of Christianity. A Christian society considered such rituals and actions as demonic and thought that they must have resulted from supernatural influences.









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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Historyextra . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Friday, January 6, 2017

1013: The year when the vikings invaded and conquered England

Swein Forkbeard leads the Viking assault on England in this detail from Matthew Paris’s 13th-century Life of St Edward the Confessor. The Danish king was drawn to England by the country’s material riches, says Sarah Foot. (Cambridge University Library)
One thousand years ago this summer, the king of Denmark (and lord also over Norway and Sweden) invaded England with a large fleet. After a brief campaign, he secured the submission of all the English people apart from the inhabitants of London. 

3 Key Battles of the Viking Invasions of England History Hit

When, as a near-contemporary English chronicler reported, “all the nation regarded him as full king”, the citizens of London finally capitulated and submitted, giving the Dane hostages, “for fear that he would destroy them”. 

Sweyn Forkbeard: England's forgotten Viking king - BBC News

That king was Swein Forkbeard. His swift conquest sent the Anglo-Saxons’ native ruler, Æthelred (nicknamed ‘the Unready’) into exile in Normandy, leaving his English subjects to pay a large tribute and supply their conqueror and his army with provisions. 

 
Sweyn Forkbeard photo: wikipedia

How could a foreign adventurer have brought such an abrupt end to the rule of the descendants of Alfred the Great? How could he have reversed the victory Alfred had won over the ninth-century Vikings, and reduced England to a subject realm within 
a Scandinavian empire? 

Southern Britain in the ninth century wikipedia

The story of Swein’s conquest of England goes back to the AD 990s, to one of the most celebrated episodes in early English military history, reported laconically in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but commemorated in a famous Old English poem: The Battle of Maldon. In the summer of 991, 
a fleet of more than 90 Viking ships landed in Kent, sailed to Ipswich and, after sacking that town, came into the estuary of the Blackwater river in Essex. 

 
Byrhtnoth's Plaque near Northey Island image wikipedia
Byrhtnoth statue in Maldon, Essex. Hero and loser of the Battle of Maldon in 991 photo: wikipedia

Facing them on the other shore stood the ranks of the english army led by the Ealdorman of Essex, Byrhtnoth. When a Danish messenger called across the water to urge the English to make peace and “buy off this onslaught of spears with tribute-money”, so that they need not “join battle so grievously”, Byrhtnoth stepped forward to speakin response:

The Battle of Maldon Poem

Determining that the “grim game of battle” would arbitrate between them before the English would pay tribute, Byrhtnoth ordered his men to pick up their shields and walk to stand on the edge of the river, where the flood tide flowed, separating the two forces. Only when the waters receded could the seaborne attackers try to take the causeway, which bold English men defended resolutely, refusing to take flight from the ford. 

The perfidious Vikings (as the poem portrayed them) tricked their way into getting Byrhtnoth to yield some ground; he then paid the ultimate price for that act of pride, as the poet saw it, of conceding the Danes too much land. Byrhtnoth fell in the battle, with his last breath commending his soul to the Lord of hosts and of Angels.


Æthelred in an early thirteenth-century copy of the Abingdon Chronicle photo: wikipedia

Hateful visitors

The Maldon poet contrasted the heroism and dedication of Byrhtnoth and those who fell with him – loyal followers of a devout lord – with the disloyal and ungrateful cowards who fled the battlefield on their lord’s death, instead of sacrificing their own lives to avenge him. Danes (“the hateful visitors”) appear as arrogant in their demand for tribute before a blow has been struck; they use guile to gain ground on the English side of the causeway. English valour and moral courage lie at the heart of the poet’s message, but the military prowess of the “fierce” Vikings is never concealed. 

Although the poem did not name any of the hostile army, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle credited Olaf (Tryggvason) with leading the force that attacked England in 991, implying that he fought at Maldon. But an independent source mentions the involvement of an Essex nobleman in a “treacherous plan that Swein should be received in Essex when first he came there with a fleet”. 


King Olaf I of Norway's arrival to Norway Based on drawing by Peter Nicolai Arbo photo: wikipedia

This suggests that Swein, not Olaf, took the command. Newly established as king in Denmark, with the substantial power and resources of that realm behind him, Swein made a more plausible leader of this invading force than did the Norwegian adventurer Olaf. He would prove a formidable foe. 

Olaf Tryggvason: From a Child Slave to the First Viking Christian BaviPower

After a period of relative peace, Vikings had begun again to attack English shores before Swein and Olaf arrived in 991. Swein’s personal involvement represented a new threat: Denmark’s ruler had his eye on the material resources of England, one of the richest kingdoms of its day. 


Scandinavian adventurers had sought new lands and opportunities in western Europe since the ninth century, but never before had the Danish king himself led their raids. Swein’s ability to spend so much time on overseas expeditions offers an insight into the security of his power at home. The plunder he gathered in England helped to bolster both his resources and his reputation, strengthening his position on both sides of the North Sea.


Spreading misery

Defeated at Maldon, the English paid tribute to the Danes. Further Danish victories followed in the next three years, with attacks on East Anglia, Lindsey, Northumbria, London, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire until the English again paid tribute. 
 
Statue of Olaf in the city plaza of Trondheim photo: dailyscandinavian.com

At this point, in 994, the English king Æthelred succeeded in separating Swein and Olaf by sponsoring Olaf at his confirmation and giving him royal gifts. In return, Olaf promised never to come back to England in hostility, but took his new wealth to Norway and seized the throne. 

This forced Swein back to Scandinavia to counter the threat to his own realm. While the Danish king sought to reassert control at home (defeating and killing his Norwegian rival in 999), Viking armies continued to harry England, levying large tributes and causing significant misery.

Exeter's History via Maps Images 

Swein first reappears in the English chronicle record when leading the army in an attack on Exeter in 1003, but he may have returned to England as early as 1000. In 1004 he came with his fleet to Norwich, and burned the town down. Fierce fighting near Thetford brought Swein another victory and it seemed no man could defeat him. Then in 1005 a famine struck England, one so bad that the chronicler wrote that “no man ever remembered one so cruel”. Swein was forced to take his fleet back to Denmark. 


Crisis of the Late Middle Ages - Wikipedia

The chronicler, writing from London some time after the events, during the reign of Swein’s son Cnut, laid the blame for the recurrent English defeats firmly on the English leadership. 


To the chronicler’s mind, the incompetence, indecision and cowardice of those in power weakened the morale and determination of the rank-and-file troops, who often crumbled on the battlefield without offering real resistance. So weak were England’s defensive responses that the Danes went about as they pleased: “Nothing withstood them, and no naval force nor land force dared go against them, no matter how far inland they went” (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

Anglo Saxon Chronicle photo: wikipedia

Even Æthelred’s drastic strategy of ordering the massacre of all Danish men in England on 
St Brice’s Day in 1002 did little to turn the tide of Danish victory, serving only to heighten the population’s fears.

Although Swein stayed in Denmark after his return in the year of the great famine in England (1005), his absence brought no respite to the English. The arrival in 1009 of the “immense raiding army”, led by Thorkell the Tall, represented a turning point in Æthelred’s reign. Whether, as one source favourable to Swein maintained, Thorkell came as the agent of Swein or (as is more plausible) he led an independent band of warriors, drawn from across Scandinavia, Thorkell’s tactics and military prowess proved more than a match for English defences.

Storm in Hjørungavåg by Gerhard Munthe image wikipedia

Between 1009 and 1012, his army devastated great swathes of England. As the chronicler wrote: 

“All these disasters befell us through bad policy, in that they were never offered tribute in time, nor fought against; but when they had done most to our injury, peace and truce were made with them. And for all this truce and tribute, they journeyed none the less in bands everywhere, and harried our wretched people and plundered and killed them.”

The rune stone U 344 in Orkesta, Uppland, Sweden, was raised by the Viking Ulfr who commemorated that he had taken a danegeld in England with Thorkell the Tall. He took two others with Skagul Toste and Cnut the Great

From an English perspective, the nadir of Thorkell’s campaign came in 1012 following the fall of the city of Canterbury when, on 19 April, his army shamefully put to death Ælfheah, archbishop of Canterbury



Ælfheah of Canterbury photo: wikipedia

In the aftermath of the archbishop’s martyrdom, Thorkell and 45 ships from his army changed sides to ally with Æthelred, promising to defend England.


photo: historyextra
Northern power base 

In 1013, King Swein arrived with his fleet at Sandwich in Kent. He might (as one source maintained) have wanted to punish Thorkell for changing sides. But a close connection between Swein and Thorkell cannot be proven, and other considerations motivated the Danish king, including the desire to now conquer England. 
 
Location of Sandwich. photo: cka.moon-demon.co.uk

From Sandwich, Swein sailed quickly round East Anglia, into the mouth of the Humber and along the Trent until he reached Gainsborough. Without a fight, Earl Uhtred and all the Northumbrians, the people of Lindsey and of the Five Boroughs and all the Danish settlers north of Watling Street submitted to him. This diplomatic victory gave Swein a power base from which to attack Thorkell and Æthelred in the south.

Having provisioned his army, and equipped it with horses, Swein left his son Cnut in charge in Northumbria and crossed Watling Street. Then he allowed his army to do whatever damage it would, intending to subdue the English by fear. His strategy worked. The citizens of Oxford submitted to him and gave him hostages; so did the men of Winchester. 

Only London refused to yield, its citizens resisting because King Æthelred and Thorkell were inside its walls. So Swein turned away to Wallingford, crossed the Thames 
and went to Bath, where he stayed with his army. All the western ‘thegns’ (noblemen) came to submit to him and gave him hostages. 

Now, as the chronicler wrote, “all the nation regarded him as full king”. So it was that the men of London also submitted for fear of what he would do to them. And Swein demanded full payment and provisions for his army that winter. Yet, despite it all, the chronicler lamented, “his army ravaged as often as they pleased”.

King Æthelred escaped to the Isle of Wight where he spent Christmas, and then went into exile with his wife’s people in Normandy. For one short winter, Swein, the king of Denmark and overlord of much of Scandinavia, added England to his empire. 


Isle of Wight in England photo: wikipedia

But on 3 February 1014, Swein died, and the fleet elected Cnut as king. The English then thought better of their own king, their natural lord and begged him to return, “if he would govern them more justly than he did before”. 

It would take two more years of heavy fighting, the death of Æthelred (in April 1016) and of his son Edmund (Ironside) at the end of November that same year, before Cnut would succeed to the whole kingdom of the English and so initiate a period of Danish rule. Cnut’s ultimate victory owed much to the persistence and military prowess of his father, Swein. From the perspective of 1013, it was clear that Byrhtnoth and his companions at Maldon had fallen to the superior military and tactical strength of the most successful king 
of the Viking age.


Who was Swein Forkbeard? 

The rise of the Danish king who subjugated England

Swein was the son of Harald Bluetooth, the first Christian king of Denmark, who had substantially enlarged the Danish kingdom and been accepted as overlord in Norway. Eager to wield power himself, Swein rebelled against his father in AD 987, and drove him into exile. 

Harald Bluetooth being baptized by Bishop Poppo the missionary, probably ca. 960 photo: wikipedia

Such was the stability of the realm that Harold had created that Swein was free to lead raids on England himself, without having to worry about his security at home. And 
his campaign enjoyed 
the support not only of 
his own retainers but also of other leading men from Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia, who hoped to profit 
from the treasures 
he would win.
 
Harald's kingdom (in red) and his vassals and allies (in yellow), as set forth in Heimskringla, Knytlinga Saga, and other medieval Scandinavian sources. photo: wikipedia


Swein’s nickname, Forkbeard, is first recorded in a chronicle from Roskilde, compiled about 1140. Most medieval accounts of his career followed the lead given by a German chronicler, Adam of Bremen, who denigrated Swein for failing to recognise the authority of the German emperor and not acknowledging the ecclesiastical authority of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. 


Sweyn and the Jomsvikings at the funeral ale of his father Harald Bluetooth photo: wikipedia

A more positive picture is offered in a text in praise of Emma, widow of Æthelred the Unready, who went on to marry Cnut, Swein’s son. There Swein is praised as a fortunate, generous and religious king.


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